Hmmm, which handbag will I choose today?

It's a hairy, hairy world

Hair collected after about 7 or 8 mins of brushing.


Raking the lawn...for dog hair.


The culprit.

Blowin' in the Wind

Well, the photo I put up before of the hair saffy is shedding was nothing compared to what we're getting now. Whole clumps of her undercoat are just lifting off at the slightest touch. It's called "blowing the coat" in technical malamute circles.

She likes to eat the clumps if we let her. Weird dog.

Frogs

I can hear two frogs croaking outside, they are really loud. How do such small animals make so much noise?

One of them croaked for real last night, I found it belly-up in the backyard today. I'm sure it was the dogs' fault. Frogs make good toys unfortunately.

Election fever

I love elections. I particularly enjoy watching the ABC's election night coverage, with all the graphs and seat-by-seat analysis by Antony Green. You never know what will happen!

This is getting ridiculous

I woke up at 5.41am this morning. Stupid sun! I need to get one of those eye mask things, at least until daylight savings begins.

Funny

I read this on the Sydney Anglican forums:

Abraham and Isaac had a really old computer, a 286. One day Abraham came home and told Isaac that he was going to run Windows 2000 on the computer.

Isaac said “Don’t be silly dad. You can’t run Windows 2000 on a 286. Where are you going to get the RAM?”

Abraham replied, “Don’t worry son. God will provide the RAM.”

Family Portrait

Mum drew this, in honour of oscar's return.

Grateful

Last night we went round to the house where we found Oscar, to give the people a present to say thanks. I spoke to the wife, who mentioned that her husband was missing having him around, and that Oscar was very affectionate, and very vocal! She thinks he had a week without food, as he was skeletal when they saw him and started feeding him. We’re so grateful that they did.

Sleepy

I can’t wait for daylight savings to kick in – I’ve been waking up before 6am the last few days because of the sun.

Fellow travellers

I don’t mind moths. I know they are not too popular in Sydney at the moment, but they don’t gross me out. One sat near me on the train home yesterday and I wondered how long he’d been on public transport for. He might have been all over Sydney!

It reminded me of Archy the Cockroach, who used to travel the subway and write poetry. See below for an example...

pity the poor spiders

By Don Marquis, in "archy amd mehitabel," 1927
(NB Archy is a cockroach)

i have just been reading
an advertisement of a certain
roach exterminator
the human race little knows
all the sadness it
causes in the insect world
i remember some weeks ago
meeting a middle aged spider
she was weeping
what is the trouble i asked
her it is these cursed
fly swatters she replied
they kill of all the flies
and my family and i are starving
to death it struck me as
so pathetic that i made
a little song about it
as follows to wit

twas an elderly mother spider
grown gaunt and fierce and gray
with her little ones crouched beside her
who wept as she sang this lay

curses on these here swatters
what kills off all the flies
for me and my little daughters
unless we eats we dies

swattin and swattin and swattin
tis little else you hear
and we ll soon be dead and forgotten
with the cost of living so dear

my husband he up and left me
lured off by a centipede
and he says as he bereft me
tis wrong but i ll get a feed

and me a working and working
scouring the streets for food
faithful and never shirking
doing the best i could

curses on these here swatters
what kills off all the flies
me and my poor little daughters
unless we eats we dies

only a withered spider
feeble and worn and old
and this is what
you do when you swat
you swatters cruel and cold

i will admit that some
of the insects do not lead
noble lives but is every
man s hand to be against them
yours for less justice
and more charity

archy

4WDing

As mentioned below, we went 4WDing yesterday. We found a track on a hill that seemed like fun, not too hard but still a bit of a challenge.

That was until we got down the bottom of the hill and started climbing up the other side - it got REALLY difficult and a little bit SCARY. I was worried a couple of times that we would be stuck there or that the car would break. We kept going, thinking surely it would get easier as we climbed higher, but then we hit a steep rocky bit and there was no way we could get over it. This meant turning around, and going back through all the really hard bits again!! Shuddering stuff.

We did get out in the end, thanks to Adam's excellent driving. Let's just say we won't be going back there in a hurry, at least not without other people and some recovery equipment.

Wombles the Echidna

We went 4WDing on Saturday in the Watagans (mountains north of us), and on the way back we saw an Echidna. I christened him Wombles. He let us get quite close to him as he trundled across the fire trail. It's not every day you see an Echidna.

Look who's back!

After almost giving up hope, we had a call today from a man in East Gosford who'd had a ginger cat hanging around for a week. It sounded like Oscar, but we didn't get our hopes up because his description was quite general. Plus it's quite a hike from our house to East Gosford so it seemed unlikely that Oscar could have made his own way there.

We went to the man's house, he led us around the back, and there was Oscar - looking a bit thin but still our cat. He's lost his collar.

We couldn't believe he had gone, and now we can't believe he's back - what are the chances? Good thing I put a lost notice in the local paper. And good thing we prayed a LOT! God has truly been very kind to us. Oscar is part of the family and we were so sad when we couldn't find him.

He is on house arrest for a few weeks and we're going to get him microchipped.

TV = time vacuum

Sometimes I wish there was less on TV that I wanted to watch. Last night the new series of Heroes began and it's at a really inconvenient day/time, but I started watching it and now I'll probably end up watching the whole series. It is gripping and funny and unusual. TV is a bit of a time vacuum sometimes - too much to watch, not enough time. I actually prefer it over summer when the good shows are on holidays so I don't watch as much.

Running

I've started jogging with the dogs. I'm so unfit I can only do about half a block at a time, but I enjoy it. So do the dogs! We must make quite a sight - good thing it's usually dark by the time I go.

God is in control

It is a great comfort to me that God is in control. Easy to forget, but important to remember!

Moulting time

Saffy is losing her winter coat, and I've been brushing it out for her. This is a picture of the dog hair from two sessions:



And there's plenty more where that came from!

Word verification

I've switched off word verification, it was a bit unnecessary!

Fires

I'm on the train at the moment, wondering if I'll make it home tonight. Apparently the lines are cut at Cowan because of the bushfires. I can't believe we've had a 35 degree day in October - scary stuff. I was going to work from home tomorrow so wherever I end up tonight I'm not too worried as I don't have to go to the office in the morning anyway.

I hope the pets are all ok after such a hot day...might need to give them ice cubes with their tea!

Emails

I’ve had the brilliant idea of (wait for it...!) replying to personal emails WHEN I GET THEM instead of waiting until I “get round to it”, which usually takes a few weeks and involves having to remember to reply and feeling guilty for leaving it so long.

I’m not always in the mood to write emails but if I get them out of the way then I don’t have to worry about them.

Did someone say brilliant? Oh, it was me :P

 

Coffee

The place I occasionally get a coffee from in the morning has mysteriously closed – meaning this morning I had to walk the long way round to go to the other coffee shop I frequent. It’s quite disconcerting when shops close without warning.

 

 

Spring in our garden

Bring your ear plugs

For those of you lucky enough to be familiar with the wonderful tune that is the Wigwam (i.e. anyone in my family) then let me just say that me learning how to play the Baby Elephants Walk provides about the same level of aural pleasure. I hope the neighbours are enjoying it...

Reality TV

Nixter and I were discussing at lunch today the joys of watching reality tv shows like America's Next Top Model. In a supreme example of me wasting time, I've looked the show up on Wikipedia for interest's sake, and it turns out the show we just had broadcast in Australia is from 2005! Talk about old news.

Also, I watched the show about finding a new member for the PussyCat Dolls when it was on earlier this year (clearly I have a tendency to watch trashy shows!). I looked them up as well, and the winning girl, after all the fuss of winning the series and declaring she wanted it more than anything, never actually performed with the group, and went off to start a solo career only months after winning the competition. So the whole TV show was a bit pointless (except of course from the point of view of gaining ratings and revenue for the producers, and publicity for the group...)

Lipstick

On the weekend I bought a new lipstick. It was around $20 which for me is bordering on expensive (for makeup anyway!) I was pleased when I tried it on to discover it has that “proper” lipstick smell. Not sure what the smell is but the cheaper ones don’t have it.

 

Makes me feel like a grown up ;)

Doorbell

I've been listening to a Mary J Blige album on my ipod lately, and there's one song that has a sound in it like a doorbell. It sounds a lot like the bell we have at work, so every time I hear it I think someone's at the door. Even just now, when I'm on the train, I thought someone was at the door. Very confusing!

Music

Mary brought me some piano music so now I've got some more things to play - I only had church stuff before which was a bit too hard for me. I think I'm probably at grade 3 or 4 level at the moment so there's plenty to improve on! It does remind me of how I used to learn piano, basically just by memorising the songs rather than reading the music!

Oscar

It's been over a week now since Oscar (our cat) wandered off and didn't come back. He might still show up but I'm starting to consider the idea that he might not. We got Oscar in 1998 when he was very little, and he's been a significant part of the family since then. I know that there are lots of cats in the world and that it's silly to say that he was an exceptional cat, but he was exceptional to us. I miss him.

Public Holidays

Public holidays always seem to come along right when I need them. Do other countries have as many as we do?